


Rosemary, That's For Remembrance

by katee_roos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Musing Abound, Blaise Zabini is High Maintainence, Blaise Zabini is a Good Friend, Comedy, DRACO MALFOY IS A DRAMA QUEEN, Descent into Madness, Do-Over, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, Draco Malfoy Has Issues, Drama, Freeform, Gen, Hogwarts Sixth Year, It's All About the Power of Friendship, Multi, Other, POV Draco Malfoy, Redemption, Shakespearian Flower Symbolism, The Boys Try to Find the Meaning of Life, Theodore Nott is a Gremlin, Three Bad Boys Try Their Hardest to Be Good Boys, Time Travel Fix-It, but also not really, contemplation of mortality, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29212467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katee_roos/pseuds/katee_roos
Summary: He had decided long ago, before the whole world had crumbled around him, that if he could rewrite his whole life, he would. Misplaced loyalty had doomed him, but he knew in his bones that it could have been his greatest asset if he hadn’t wasted it. Where his cowardice and conscience had failed the first time, with his memories and friendships he could this time atone. That is, if he can keep from dying again long enough to make any real progress.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy & Theodore Nott, Draco Malfoy & Theodore Nott & Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	1. There Must Have Been A Moment, At the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hi there! This is the first work of fanfiction that I've posted in years and my first in the Harry Potter fandom, though I have been a part of it for a very long time. I'm so very happy to be able to upload this work, though, because it is the first writing I have been able to do for fun since beginning undergrad. I must warn you, dear reader, that my focus is in writing research papers, not fiction, so my fiction prose tends to be very heavily punctuated and borders on freeform, though it has been edited. There is a lot of Shakespeare, namely Hamlet, both in symbolism and direct quote (as well as the title of this fic), as well as a heavy amount of influence and direct quote (including the title of this chapter) from Tom Stoppard's fabulous play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, citations for all of which I will include in chapter endnotes.
> 
> Obligatorily, none of the characters in this story belong to me, nor does this world, both of which were created by J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

Draco Malfoy had been struck in the chest with a curse that he didn’t recognize. His lungs were filling with blood. His lungs were filling with blood just when things seemed to be traveling toward something akin to tolerable. Or at least toward something better than the hell he had been living for the last however many years-he stopped keeping track after his acquittal and sentence to probation. Probation! Even he knew that he deserved much more, and he was sure that Saint Potter’s testimony on his behalf was the only reason he was not shunted into Azkaban for the rest of his sorry existence. Just another thing he didn’t deserve, that he was wracked with guilt for being given. He didn’t ask for Potter’s mercy. Probation was, as Draco had come to decide, a fate worse than death. Maybe Potter did it on purpose. Draco didn’t blame him. 

Simply living for Draco passed so monotonously, so stagnantly, so haltingly; Draco had come to the conclusion that he deserved every ounce of hate and judgement for his role in the Dark Lord’s rise, for what he’d done even before the Dark Lord’s fall. There had been no point for a long time to do anything except hide in the Manor with his mother. House arrest was a lonely paradise. He was able to punish himself in ways that the wardens and guards in Azkaban would never be able to. At least not legally. There, in isolation, he could his own sentence, the one that had been denied to him. He could create his own atonement. 

Draco coughed, and spat up blood on his face. Some of it landed in his eye.

But there was only so much pushing he could take from his court-appointed Mind Healer, whose earnest and constant nagging finally annoyed him into conceding to “find purpose! Possibly through joining a club or getting a job, just simply talking to people so you can heal and give back!” Draco had laughed in Healer Perkins’s face, he knew that there would be no club that would accept him, not after what he’d done. Regardless of his recognition of his crimes, of his guilt, of his resolve to stay in the Manor and stuff himself into a box forever, or until he withered and died, to save the rest of the world from having to deal with him still being alive, he knew that he would never deserve acceptance back into polite society. When he thought about it, he had never really deserved a place in polite society, it was only afforded to him because of his family name. Cloistering himself in the Manor was the only way he could think of to atone. 

He had decided long ago, before the whole world had crumbled around him, that if he could rewrite his whole life, he would. He would have given himself a father who loved him unconditionally, who wanted more than an heir, who gave him things when he deserved them and not for the ulterior motive of promoting the prestige of the House of Malfoy. He wanted a father who hadn’t banished him to the Manor’s dungeons the summer after Third Year for once again failing to claim top marks in any of his classes. He would have given his mother the will to stand up for herself, not merely persevere. She had simply deteriorated since the end of the war. Though, she had been deteriorating long before that. She used to talk to him, when they were freshly bound to hermitage, about how she had been so close with her sister Andromeda when they were girls. About how she believed, when she was young and naïve, that she would have resisted her arranged marriage. They had made a pact to, the both of them, but when she saw Lucius and was promised to him, she was smitten. She told him that a few years into the marriage, before Draco, that she considered running away to Andromeda. But then she was pregnant and she stayed because she thought it was the best way to protect her son. Yet another thing Draco wanted to atone for. Narcissa said that she stayed, even after Lucius turned his anger on Draco, because Lucius had convinced her that he did cruel things because he loved his son, because he wanted him to be the best heir to carry the Malfoy name. He had convinced Draco, too. Draco had come to expect, in his childhood, that living life in a box was better than no life at all.

The blood in his eye was starting to color his vision red. He coughed again, this time he could feel it running in hot, thick rivulets down his chin and neck. He wanted to shake the hand of whomever invented this curse, it was really quite devious.

More frequently than anything, though, Draco wished that his family had not chosen not to hate, to teach him hate. It was something he held in his heart for longer than he realized. Rationally, he knew it was unavoidable, blood prejudice had been hammered into both the Malfoy and the Blacks for nearly a thousand years. His Aunt Andromeda had given it up. Sirius Black had given it up. Maybe, even if Draco’s family had been exactly the same, he could have been strong enough to make the choice that Andromeda and Sirius had, too. He knew that he had been given the chance. There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when he could have said — no. Draco spent a lot of time making laundry lists of decisions he had made and words he had said that he dreamt that he could change and take back. He wanted to have friends that his father and his name hadn’t bought. 

The Malfoy name truly did seem to be the root of a lot of his problems. He felt his breath wheeze out of his lungs, trying to move around the liquid accumulating there. 

So, at the tender age of… 24? 29? 42?- no, not 42. The pictures of Potter in the Daily Prophet would look much older if they were 42. Madam Malkin would have probably been dead instead of interviewing him for a position as her new bookkeeper if he were 42-only to report after hours of course, we can’t have anyone making any rash decisions to hurt you now now, you understand, don’t you dear? He understood. 

He understood that, even if she had been the only business owner to answer his employment inquiries (he found it humorous that a Malfoy, for the first time in what was probably centuries, was seeking employment for an hourly wage), even if she was being so, so kind, kinder than he deserved, kinder than anyone had been to him since his mother stopped talking, it would be bad for her business if people knew that she had been kind enough to employ him. But he had made the mistake to linger in Diagon Alley after the interview, savoring his first excursion off of the Manor’s grounds in years. He couldn’t believe how much he missed the world. It made him want to lock himself away tighter.

So, at the tender age of a lot less than he felt that he should be-though, to be fair, tender was not the correct descriptor either. The ceaseless grinding in his bones and the growing chill of his skin and the wear on his ideals and his deeds on his soul he could no longer ignore made him feel as ancient and decomposed as a corpse. He could not escape the weight of the faded Dark Mark on his arm, now marred with a thick white line of raised flesh bisecting it longways because he had reached the point what seemed like centuries ago that he could not bear to catch any glimpse of it. There was a time he had considered just going ahead and cutting the whole arm off. It still felt like a lead limb. 

He brought his sleeved forearm, the one that had been inked and marred, up to wipe his bloody mouth. The warmth of it soaked the cloth of his crisp black shirt, but he couldn’t see its color. He pressed his bloody sleeve to his forehead and wondered if the blood would stain his hair orange. He wished he could laugh at the thought of himself with orange hair, maybe he’d look like a Weasley. Instead, he just choked again.

Draco had spent a lot of his time during his self-imposed exile attempting to erase the brand on his arm. He had never even really wanted it, it was given to him because of his father’s failures-yet another thing his father gave him as a show of their family’s devotion to power. Draco had decided to be proud because he knew it was the best way to survive. Power. Prestige. His mother taught him that. He wanted to save her, like she had tried so often to saved him from his father’s frustration; Narcissa had been leveraged against Lucius by the Dark Lord just as Draco had. He failed at that, too. 

Loyalty, that was Draco’s curse. Loyalty is so often lauded among the heroes of history as an asset, as something to be praised, but Draco seemed doomed to pledge his to all the wrong things. He had doomed himself with his loyalty to power. To blood purity. To his father. To the Dark Lord. 

So, at the age of whatever, at a time long past due, Draco Malfoy died on a beautiful evening where the sun was setting pink and orange under the clouds, on the ground in Diagon Alley, drowned by his own blood. There weren’t many people out at that time of the evening, but the street wasn’t empty. No one had made any move to help him. “Good,” he thought, “this is what I earned.” 

Saint Potter had his destiny, now Draco was finally getting to fulfill his. Murdered in the street like a dog: like a criminal. He had played his own judge and jury, he had to, and he was relieved he had been beaten to the role of executioner. He probably would have been too much of a coward to do that, too. It didn’t matter though; most days Draco wasn’t sure he was even alive anyway. 

He found that dying felt a lot like living those past however many years: the burning in his lungs, like every breath was killing him; a crushing weight all around him that splinters the bones that he had only ever imagined that he knew he had; the black that was always in his periphery which, at that moment, was creeping and crawling to take up his whole field of vision.  
For in this sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Draco Malfoy, who had been born in the shadow of darkness and chose to embrace it, who had only ever dreamed of being welcomed and warm and loved regardless of how long it took for him to realize it, who was the son of betrayal and hurt and a father who could have just loved him and a mother who could have been brave, realized that he had been drowning for as long as he could remember. He let himself be set up for failure, let himself be shunted into a box that was measured for him and nailed closed before he could even think to question. Draco dreamed of a world where he had been braver. 

Conjured from somewhere in his subconscious, he sees the flower box visible from the leftmost window of the Manor’s sitting room, where his mother had planted an odd assortment of rosemary and rue, pansies and violets, chamomile and daisies, and of course narcissus-daffodils. Draco hated the look of daffodils, they had no right to be so cheery. He thought the little garden incongruous and less than visually pleasing, but the plot with its strange growth and seasonal inconsistency was the only thing Narcissa seemed capable of putting energy toward anymore. She had tucked a tiny sprig of rosemary and a single chamomile blossom twisted around each other into his lapel before he had left that morning. His right hand found it as he remembered, and sputtered a weak final cough. 

And, all in a fraction of a second, with a quick curse cast by someone he passed on the street-he didn’t see who, didn’t even care-it felt as though all the aching, all the pain, all the twinging scars, and all the wanting, the longing would finally end for him. The hurt, the uncertainty, the loneliness, the lovelessness. He wasn’t sure that he had even earned that yet. There was so much more he needed to atone for, so much more that needed to be punished. But Draco Malfoy reluctantly welcomed death this time; he did not spin every gear in his brain to weasel his way out as he had every other time it had come knocking on his door. Now, he was exhausted. He couldn’t help but to let himself let go. 

Draco thought that it had to be some kind of a sick joke that, in this moment of final release, he begins choking again. And coughing. And the blood in his lungs was gone and he was breathing. Suddenly, the black in his vision was white.

How could something already dead be asked to die again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second part of this work will be up post-haste, but I was too giddy to wait for it to be finished before sharing this introduction. I must thank the wonderful friend @zombiecreatures without whom I would have never had the courage to post this. Hopefully, some of you will stick around to see how this goes for poor Draco! (And just wait until you get to meet Theodore Nott)
> 
> The Quotes:  
> "...life in a box was better than no life at all" [Paraphrased From Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard]  
> "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when [we] could have said — no" [From Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard]  
> "For in this sleep of death, what dreams may come" [From Hamlet by William Shakespeare]
> 
> The Flowers:  
> Rosemary, that’s for remembrance (especially of the dead)  
> Rue is for regrets and repentance (and also unwanted pregnancy)  
> Pansies, that’s for thoughts (and memories, of the dead again too)  
> Violets are for faithfulness or fidelity, as well as melancholy and early death  
> Chamomile is for realization of dreams and wishes  
> Daisies are for innocence


	2. Nothing in His Life Became Him Like the Leaving It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things for Draco get confusing, frustrating, and deadly all at once. Fending off madness in multiple deaths and attempts to make sense of guilt and memories that aren't his is one thing, but dealing with Theo Nott's and Blaise Zabini's inquisitions are entirely another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello! I am so sorry it's been days longer than I promised when posting my initial chapter, but here it is: chapter 2! This chapter has been mostly edited but not entirely because I am impatient, so please forgive any mistakes or clunkiness. This chapter includes both my attempts at continuity and at humor, neither of which are elements I am familiar with weaving into fiction. It has struck me that the best way to describe this story is future fluffy friendship shenanigans with an unnecessary amount of melancholy stream of consciousness narration, contemplations of guilt and morality, and questing for redemption. And flower symbolism. Predictably, the title for this chapter is borrowed from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Thank you so much, dear reader, for coming back for chapter 2, I hope you enjoy it!

Draco Malfoy was sprawled, legs akimbo, on the stone floor of the Room of Lost Things, hacking and spitting and trying to catch a breath of air that didn’t feel like fire in his chest. Despite the burning in his lungs and the shock of being thrust from the welcome embrace of emptiness at what he determined was great force judging by the ache around his ribs, it was the first time in however many years since he had stopped counting-and even before that, since he had taken the Dark Mark and flung himself toward damnation-that his entire body didn’t ache with emptiness. 

He had never loved anyone he had chosen really, he had never been given the chance-never gave himself the chance to be loved back-so when he opened his eyes to find himself looking up at an open Vanishing Cabinet that he knew too well, overcome with dread at its dark wood and dark magic and the dark potential, he could not think of anyone for whom he should cry out. Faced with the soft lights of the sconces on far away walls and the smell of dust and secrets and assorted unsavory odors of rotting, lost food that the Room had claimed, he knew that he was alive, but he didn’t know that he wanted to be. 

At least, not there. 

In the back of his mind, it registered that he was wearing his Hogwarts uniform. He looked at his legs-they weren’t as long, his feet were smaller. Shakily, he turned his head to the full-length mirror to his right, though he did not remember how he knew it was there. His hair was also shorter than-shorter than what? There was a slight orange tinge to the front of his white-blond hair, just at his hairline, and he wondered how it got there. To his relief, the longer he looked at it, the more it faded. God forbid he looked like a Weasley, he thought, which brought about a sense of deja-vu that was so strong it seared in his brain. 

But he was already forgetting. His right hand smelled like rosemary and tea.

Rosemary, rosemary, if it was a clue to how he found himself in the scene of the nightmares he had lived for-for how long? He couldn’t remember what he did not know. 

Draco stood up. His knees were stiff, but only in the way that told him he’d had them locked for too long, and his vision whited over for a moment as the blood in his body rushed away from where it had settled. Dusting himself off, he took a step back and looked around to the towers of junk surrounding him and tried to remember the way out. It took what felt like a dozen attempts at selecting various pathways through the stacks and away from the cabinet for him to find a space big enough for him to pace. It was the same clearing that the cabinet was in. He had walked in a circle. Then he did it again. There was no fathomable way that he could have forgotten the way to navigate a room he had spent so many hours in, that he had spent just yesterday coming and going, coming and going between his classes. 

He paused. He hadn’t spent the previous day there, he’d been at home and-and he lost his train of thought again. He was beginning to get frustrated. He smelled rosemary again as he threw his hands up in exasperation and willed himself to remember how to get out of such a bloody cocked-up place. If there was one thing Draco Malfoy hated being, it was lost. 

The only spell that came to his mind was one that would show him which way was north, and because Draco had never much cared for maps and compasses and things, it probably would not do him much good either way. There were always other people to do the directions for him-chauffeurs and servants and the like. Fuck, he thought, why doesn’t he have a spell for this? There was always Apparation-wait, no there wasn’t, he wasn’t seventeen yet was he? And he was in Hogwarts, anyway. Wasn’t this blasted room supposed to provide whatever was needed? 

Draco felt that he was, regrettably, out of any reasonable options, and raised his eyes in exasperation. He’d have to climb one of the stacks of rubbish to try and find the door. Ridiculous. Reduced to such a baseness.

“This has to be a-” Draco grunted as he attempted to find a handhold whilst he struggled to scale a wall of abandoned ottomans, “a dream. There’s no fathomable-” his left foot had trusted a wayward piece of furniture with too much weight, the stool in question clattered downward before meeting the floor. Draco did not look down after it, he hated heights unless he was on his broom. 

He stayed his complaints as he struggled higher and higher, the stack of furniture swaying with every shift of weight. It felt like ages before his hand could reach no higher purchase, but he waved it around briefly in the air just to make sure there wasn’t a sneaky something he had to surpass to reach the top. “There is _no_ fathomable explanation as to why I cannot remember the way out,” he grumbled, obligated to finish his thought from what felt like hours earlier, as he worked at shimmying so that his upper body rested over the surface of the topmost ottoman in the tower. He let out a breath and tried, tried, tried not to look directly below himself, but toward the walls for any sign of an exit. 

And then, the tower began to sway to the right. Draco held his breath. It tipped to the left in return. He looked down in front of himself to see how far up he was and discovered that the floor was growing closer. He gripped the ottoman under his chest so hard he felt as though his shoulders would separate from his back. “Bother,” he groaned out as the front of his body hit the floor following the ottoman’s failure to provide any semblance of cushioning from the impact. How could he have been so stupid to try and climb a bunch of spindly wooden furniture instead of a henge of sturdy armoires or a staircase of statuary or something more stable?

With the wind knocked out of him, Draco could not will his limbs to move, and he was stuck facedown and wheezing. A few beats later, he was able flip himself mostly onto his back. He was sure he had broken a rib, maybe punctured a lung, and he still did not know the way out. And then his eyes locked onto a wardrobe that was sitting on top of two stacked desks which should have not been trusted with its weight. Draco’s fall had disturbed their peace. And there was a creak. The wardrobe was traveling down to tell Draco just how little it appreciated him jostling its perch.

This must be the end, then, Draco thought, more dejectedly and unamused than he would have expected his reaction to imminently being crushed to death under a gaudy Gothic bedroom set. It made him think of the Manor, how he hated its decoration. It was as if his parents were trying to prove something, as if his father hadn’t allowed the Dark Lord to brand Draco before he was even old enough to Apparate, as if he hadn’t been planning to allow it all along. 

Aside from the fact that getting crushed to death in the Room of Lost Things meant never getting to learn to Apparate, Draco found himself relieved. In a split second, his mind contemplated if this was a dream. Or if the memory of drowning was a dream. If he was even alive at all in the first place because his life seemed so ridiculous and contrived and he could have just sworn that he died-but when? And how? In the long run, though, this did get him out of his promise to commit murder in the first degree within the school year. No more _Crucio_ when he faltered at accepting instructions to do murder in the first place. And he’d never have to look at that blasted vanishing cabinet again, either. 

Regardless, when the wardrobe was inches away from merging his body with the Room’s flagstone floor permanently and unrecognizably, Draco couldn’t help but mutter, “bollocks.”

And then Draco Malfoy was sprawled, legs akimbo, on the stone floor of the Room of Lost Things, working at peeling his limbs up from where they felt pasted to the floor. He was not pancaked beneath a wardrobe, and he was very much alive. And in front of that damned, Merlin-forsaken, bollocksy, bloody Vanishing Cabinet again. He heard himself scream, though whether it was from pain or frustration. He remembered that last death, that was for certain.

His consciousness felt flooded. Bombarded with foggy information and the echo of a life he had not yet lived but could remember in flashes, Draco’s brain was searing and splitting. The Dark Mark on his arm felt as though it was being cut into his arm again, flesh cleaving apart to brand him and then slashed down its middle. He saw himself do it, like looking at a picture in which he was much more haggard and defeated and _older_ , with a Goblin-forged blade in one hand poised over his exposed opposite forearm. He could recall the torture of his mother, of himself, of Hermione Granger at the hands of his Aunt Bellatrix. All of his future past sins were etherized in front of him on a bed of spring crocus and Stars of Bethlehem. 

_He had decided long ago, before the whole world had crumbled around him, that if he could rewrite his whole life, he would._ He didn’t want to believe it. He hadn’t earned it. He couldn’t think.

It felt like his bones were snapping back together-maybe they were. Draco wanted to die. He pulled himself to his feet using a low wooden chest-one whose legs were barely two inches tall and set solidly on the floor, as Draco’s trust for furniture had suddenly plummeted to depths he had never contemplated plausible-and saw the door not ten feet in front of him, between two bookcases filled with balls of chewing gum, both singular pieces and collections of chewed bits all smashed together, and discarded candies of various sizes and stages of having been consumed. It made Draco feel sick-or sicker, considering it felt as though his stomach had been popped like an acid-filled balloon and that his kidneys were where his lungs should be. 

All he wanted was a nap. 

Draco limped, dragging his left leg behind him, as it had not yet shaken immobilization due to impact that Draco was not certain had actually occurred-had he dreamed dying? Twice even? Fragments of laying on the street and coughing blood were floating at the fringes of his memory. The feeling of resignation and failure and guilt-so much guilt. As if Draco didn’t have enough worrying at his mind already, feelings and flashes from what he hoped was just a nightmare were gathering in his gut. 

He had made it to a downward-leading staircase and had to take a break. He laid flat on his face. It was nice. Draco didn’t know how long he laid there, but he could feel his muscles twitching, and then relaxing, one by one. He figured, after what may or may not have just happened, that was as good a place for a nap as any. 

Theo Nott had sunken in eyes. They were the first thing that Draco had noticed about him when they were introduced as boys. Draco thought it made Theo-never Theodore, Theo despised being called Theodore-look a bit dead. Draco could not remember when Theo had begun grinning that particular grin which seemed to make his deep, hollow cheeks even more pronounced and it stretched his mouth in a manner which made it appear as though he had a few too many teeth. Theo Nott’s smile made his resemblance to a ghoul almost uncanny. Sometimes, it seemed like Theo cultivated the effect on purpose, he seemed to like being unnerving. It was a habit that Draco had discovered very early into their First Year, when Theo claimed the bed adjacent to Draco’s and Draco had realized later that night that Theo slept with his eyes open. As Theo got older and much, much taller, he had became bone thin and he had dyed his ashy, grayish blond hair black and spiked it so it somewhat resembled a charred dandelion-its style showing off his dead man’s eyes. Draco wondered if Theo was naturally as startling pale as he seemed, or if he achieved it by simply casting glamours on himself, and that underneath them Theo looked more like the short, sad, mostly regular-looking kid with eyes rimmed in red from holding back the tears that always followed his father’s punishing hand and the weird smile that he used to hide it all, the Theo that Draco had met a decade before. At sixteen, Draco suspected Theo looked as though he should be living under a bridge in a dump or in some sort of strange Scottish graveyard with his large black boots and his tartan pants.

Theo was standing less than eighteen inches from the side of Draco’s bed, grinning his too-many-teeth-grin, when Draco opened his eyes that morning. Draco couldn’t help but start a bit as his eyes met Theo’s, rimmed in inky black. Draco did not know how he had gotten to his bed in the first place. His mouth tasted like floor. 

“And the Dark Prince has risen.” Theo’s voice hadn’t always sounded like rain on tin. Draco assumed it was a newly acquired element of Theo’s image. 

“Whayoowan,” was all Draco had managed in response, what with his face so heavily pressed against his pillow. His mother would have been appalled at his enunciation-he had taken lessons on how a young man of his stature and lineage should conduct himself through speech, from the age of six, for five years. It was as dull and pointless as a double block with Professor Binns. Theo snickered. It sounded like tearing parchment.

After a considerable amount of shifting and straining, Draco pushed himself up about half a foot and tried again. His body still felt smushed. “What do you want, Theo?” He couldn’t help but narrow his eyes. His friendship with Theo Nott-though, he hesitated to call it a friendship, was the symptom of their station. Neither one attempted to spend any unnecessary time in the other’s company, but their situation was more than acquaintance per their fathers’ collective design. Theo and Draco had spent many summer days as children forced into the same room talking about whatever most concerned tiny aristocrats and many school breaks forced into tours around Europe to visit with other stuffy old Pureblood estates. They had also spent nearly six years in adjacent beds. They knew each other absurdly well, of course, and Draco regarded Theo with the grudging respect of a peer due to Theo’s cunning, which he often hid behind his best impression at a fly, buzzing around and making noise just to get someone to swat at him. If Draco was held at wandpoint though, he would have admitted that he inarguably saw Theo as an equal. Only in that scenario would he confess it; everyone knew that Theo Nott was an absolute wanker on purpose.

Draco couldn’t help but wish it had been Blaise Zabini whose presence he awoke to instead of Theo Nott, but Draco thought that the chances of that were slim to none. Blaise, despite being the only person Draco didn’t hesitate labelling as his friend, had spent the beginning of their Sixth Year unequivocally focused on charming the knickers off any bint stupid enough to talk to him, so Draco doubted he would be able to find him, let alone monopolize his time for long enough to talk through his spotty memories and newfound talent for getting himself resurrected.

Theo plopped himself on the floor against his bed unceremoniously, as he often did, and leaned his head back onto his mattress. He seemed to have an aversion to sitting in places designed for sitting. It was a trait that became annoying when he would perch himself in the high round windows of the dormitory so that he could drop the most valuable of Blaise Zabini’s belongings onto his unsuspecting head. One of the two frequently ended up belching pink bubbles or the like for the next week.

“Oh, you know,” Theo bared his too-many-teeth, “I felt the moral obligation, you see, to deliver you back home sweet home. You _were_ , if I recall correctly, becoming intimately acquainted with the First Floor Landing.” 

Draco sneered. He did recall. “Slander and lies, Nott.”

Theo’s mouth closed into a hard line across his face that looked more like a crack in an eggshell than a mouth. “Look, I am the one who dragged your sorry ass here, so I know for a fact that no slander can be proven and no lies were told.” Briefly, Theo had transformed into the person he was attempting to look like the ghost of. Like the son of a Pureblood aristocrat, all good breeding and sharp angles, even underneath his burnt thistle hair. His eyes flashed their true rich blue color, his skin seemed more porcelain than sickly white, and his mouth had set almost commandingly. It was how Draco imagined the six-year-old Theo he first met would have grown up to look without the strange clothes and strange hair and strange eyes; Theo looked alive. And as quickly as he had resurrected himself, Theo looked like an electrified, elongated imp in plaid once again. “So, aren’t you going to thank me?”

“Thank you.” It was phrased as a statement, but Draco left some incredulity in his tone. Conceding meant that Theo might leave him alone, but his pride dictated that he give no sincere thanks in light of the annoyance he was suffering in the light of Theo’s relocation of his unconscious body. It wasn’t like he had even asked Theo to help him, anyway.

“No, no, nononono. You don’t get it. You’re supposed to thank me by telling me _why_ exactly you were tonguing a hallway.” Theo shifted himself to sit on the floor against Draco’s bed. He looked up at where Draco had moved to sit cross legged at its head and raised his eyebrows in expectation, effectively enlarging the black of his eyes as well. Draco wondered why Theo had been sorted into Slytherin, the boy lacked cunning and finesse of any sort. 

“I don’t have to explain anything, Theo.” The pout he was holding back broke through. Theo huffed and raised one stick arm with one stick finger outstretched to poke Draco’s shin. 

Draco scowled. He raised his right hand to his forehead to pinch his brow and smelled rosemary again. If he had died by squashing, why could he still smell it? And… hadn’t he died before that, and smelled it then too? He knew it came from his mother, some time ago but still yet to happen, but knowing it didn’t mean his mind understood it, and the fact it’s scent had lingered through deaths and miles and years was only confusing things more. 

“You owe me, Draco, you know how these things work,” Theo had moved to squat in front of Draco, now, cocking his head to the left and looking up at Draco. “Or, I can petrify you and dump you back where I found you.” Draco knew Theo wouldn’t; it was too much work. He was frankly puzzled as to why Theo had exerted the energy to bring him to the dormitory in the first place.

“Owe you? It’s not as if you saved my life, Theo, debts don't apply, conversation over. Go back to your cave.”

“I _could_ have saved your life though, couldn’t I, what with Potter stalking around the castle all brooding, telling anyone who’ll listen that you’ve got a Dark Mark, a certified Death Eater sent here to do the bidding of Whatever-He-Goes-By-Now and terrorize the ickle Gryffies, and thus should be destroyed.” Though everyone with ears had heard of Potter’s accusations, it unnerved him how right Potter was. He had the briefest recognition that he did not, in fact, want Potter’s suspicions about him-Draco Malfoy, Death Eater-to be true. Draco didn’t even want to have been Marked. He wanted to pull up his sleeve and see if it was still there; he had felt it, burning and excruciating as his brain was flooded with images and memories, but would it have disappeared? Or was it still there, and was it whole or bisected by his own hand? Alas, its status seemed among the least confusing of his problems. 

Theo raised his ghostly palm and patted Draco on the head, a gesture that Draco had never before received from anyone, let alone Theo Nott. Draco wrestled his wand from his back pocket, having to shift uncomfortably and ungracefully on his bum to pull it free, and held it where Theo could see it, warding him away from touching him again with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows. Theo raised his hands in mock surrender, shuffling back a half foot, still squatting on the balls of his feet. “I can’t go letting my oldest friend be assassinated by Potty with his back turned, I’d be a man of no honor.”

Draco rolled his eyes. Of course Theo considered them friends. Theo didn’t have many of those-or any really when Draco actually thought on it. Considering Theo was a hard-line loner, it almost made Draco feel… warm to be regarded in such a manner by someone who made a point to alienate everyone he could. It was an irrational, unusual reaction. Was a side effect of whatever was happening to him-he fought back a flinch-softness? The thought made him feel physically sick, but he couldn’t shake it, not when his cognitive energy was so fractured. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had a feeling that even if Theo had said it in jest, underneath all the unsettling smiles and pale eyes and absolutely bollocks personality, Theo was Draco’s oldest friend as well. Sad, really, because he really couldn’t stand being around the git for more than ten minutes.

“Nothing would please me more, actually,” Draco grumbled. “And since when do _you_ care a flobberworm’s fart about honor?” Theo threw his head back and laughed. Everyone knew that Theo Nott cared more for the power that information gave him-and the victory that annoying that information out of a victim seemed to grant him-than he cared for the honor of the means at which he acquired said information. Draco made to get up, he had reached his Theo Nott time limit about five minutes previously, and his brain was beginning to feel as though it was being bludgeoned by a beater’s bat due to prolonged exposure. But Theo was on his feet and lounging in the doorway across the room before Draco could take three steps. 

“Come on, it’s not like you to be found facedown on the floor in the middle of the day. Zabini? Yes, completely of the ordinary. In fact, he was facedown on the floor outside the girls’ dormitory Tuesday noon. He was facedown in Lisa Turpin’s bed in Ravenclaw Tower last Friday, but don’t ask me why he was the one in that position, you don’t want to know. You, though? Something happened. If someone hexed you unawares, just come out with it and we can have a laugh at you, Merlin knows it won’t be the first time-”

Draco found his face hot. He didn’t remember ever laughing at himself for getting hexed. He laughed at others, sure, and did his fair share of hexing, but any absolute numbskull who dared consider hex him should know not to commit such a grave offense, as his father was _surely_ to hear about and rectify. Other people didn’t laugh at him, he was Draco Malfoy-and then he was disgusted with himself. Wait, he thought, that’s not how things go for regular, well-adjusted children. By Merlin’s saggy left tit he was spoiled, and he was ashamed. Of course people laughed at him, he deserved it, all the ridiculous things he said and did and was oblivious to because of his inflated self-importance. It was a self-repulsion he felt deep in his bones, for what felt both like the first time and his regular state of being. It made his head hurt to think about.

He was startled out of his self-loathing when he heard the measured and, frankly, quite poncey voice of Blaise Zabini speak for the first time. “Watch it, Nott, your slander will not be tolerated. Say anything more and I’ll personally shave that pygmy puff off your head in your sleep.” In the opposite corner of the room where, upon turning his head three inches further to the left than he had since he had awoken, Draco discovered Blaise sitting in a desk chair, arms crossed, look of mild annoyance on his face as he leaned his chair onto its two back legs. Blaise Zabini was a quiet bloke. It was a universally understood and accepted fact. Instead of lowering himself to speak to their classmates, he simply made sure he was seen. Appreciated. Admired. Draco hadn’t seen him in the room before then, though. He was beginning to question the aptitude of his facilities following the rapid succession of blood-drowning and death-by-squishing and the maddening information dump he had endured.

Theo began to retort, but paused-thank Merlin, Draco needed reprieve from Theo’s voice-when Draco’s hands shot up to pull at his hair in frustration. “Whe-What? When?” Draco’s brain was fizzing like a bottle rocket. Theo had taken a seat on his own bed like a real boy, and Blaise’s expression pinched with concern. _Had_ Blaise been there the whole time? He asked his two roommates that same question.

“Yeah mate, I helped Nott carry you upstairs.” Blaise returned his chair to all four feet and walked over to lean against a stone column nearer to Draco’s and Theo’s beds. 

“It’s not like I _asked_ you for help, Zabini. Right place, right time, I get the credit for trying to move him before you showed up,” Theo grumbled. Blaise narrowed his eyes and his hand twitched toward the pocket where he kept his wand but made no further move for it when Theo didn’t press further. He was looking a little less parchmenty but still quite ghoulish. “Whatever. If something wicked this way comes, its best if you aren’t keeping it just to yourself.”

Theo Nott liked to collect information, sure, but he also knew how to keep a secret, at least with the exception of embarrassing tidbits about blokes he thought needed taking down a peg or two-namely one Blaise Zabini. Theo Nott was also the worst, and putting Theo and Blaise in the same space and expecting a conducive environment for discussing mortality and Draco’s lack thereof was not advisable for anyone not prepared for what could quite literally result in an explosion-and had on occasion. But just as deeply as he had felt the shame regarding his entire person and life’s conduct he felt that he, in the middle of such a disorienting and frankly nightmarish episode, needed both Theo Nott’s and Blaise Zabini’s counsel. It’s not like Crabbe and Goyle had the mental facilities to even begin to comprehend the situation past laughing at Draco being found on the floor. How they hadn’t completely failed their O.W.L.s, Draco would never truly understand. 

“ Unnatural deeds _do_ breed unnatural troubles,” Blaise said shooting Draco a pointed look. Though Theo was preoccupied using the tip of his wand to pick at a space between two of his teeth, Blaise’s words had briefly given him pause. For over a minute, neither made a sound. 

Draco pursed his lips to keep the scowl off his face. He thought of his mother again, telling him that he’s getting too old to be pulling sour faces as his forehead would surely crease into deep lines and make him look like an old man much too early. “Okay, okay. I-This is going to sound absolutely barmy, truly cocked up. Honestly, I feel as mad as Loony Lovegood,” when he said it he felt his stomach acid rise in his esophagus. It wasn’t a kind thing to say about a girl who had never done a thing to him past advising him to watch out for Wackspurts, which were particularly drawn to the fair-haired. He didn’t know why he cared that he’d been uncharitable. Draco let his head drop, he couldn’t deal with looking at Theo’s black-rimmed eyes or Blaise’s portraiture face while he tried to explain. “I died in the Room of Lost Things today, and I’m pretty certain I died before that too, but at the same time that was a decade from now. I have these fragmented memories and feelings from a life I haven’t lived yet, and thoughts that are mine but I can’t remember why my mind changed, the rosemary is starting to drive me nutty, and-” And then he whispered, “And I don’t want to die again.If you have the means, I really can’t recommend avoiding death enough.”

He looked back up when neither had responded for a beat. It was the longest Draco had ever experienced Theo Nott had being quiet outside of class or sleep. Or outside of the presence of his father. But Theo must have realized that as well because he opened his mouth once again. “What the _fuck_ is the Room of Lost Things?” 

Draco felt his eyes narrow. “I tell you I think I’ve both died twice and time travelled and _that’s_ your sticking point? Really, Theodore, sometimes I wonder if you’re as dull as Crabbe and Goyle and just better at hiding it.” 

Theo’s eyes blazed in fury at the use of his last name. “I am not Theodore!” The effect that anger had on Theo was startling. His back straightened and his too-many-teeth smile twisted into a grimace. Then a snarl.

Draco raised his hands and inclined his head to show concession. He appreciated that Theo accepted his recession of his error without making him vocalize it. He was allergic to the words “apologize” and “sorry,” he had gotten it from his mother’s side of the family, though he was intimately acquainted with the concepts of guilt and repentance. Theo knew this, of course, and the concession in lieu of repentance. Draco knew he deserved less. 

“Nott, you’re not even asking the right questions,” Blaise’s nostrils flared as he shot Theo a look, which Draco was surprised stopped Theo’s constant noise for the first time in ages. He instantly felt his brain relax. Hesitantly, Blaisesat adjacent to Draco and raised a hand where Draco could see it, as if he was asking permission to lay it on Draco’s shoulder. He didn’t stop him, rejecting well-meaning and much-needed shows of solidarity were the least of his worries at the moment. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, support was what he needed. He didn’t even need to force himself to accept it. Blaise was surprisingly emotionally intelligent for someone who spent his spare time practicing his best impression of a sculpture. 

It was the first time Blaise Zabini had physically shown Draco any sign of camaraderie. Where Theo tended to attempt to drape an arm over the shoulders of whomever was unfortunate enough to be the victim of his irritations, Blaise liked to drape himself on furniture, against columns, across Great Hall benches. Blaise seemed to see himself as just as much a work of art as the portraits along the Grand Staircase. Draco had never, in their six years of knowing one another, seen Blaise Zabini touch another person willingly. But at some point during their fifth year, around the time when Draco began to distance himself from Grabbe and Goyle and Pansy that’s-not-for-thoughts Parkinson, Blaise had elected to sit next to Draco in Potions. And then in Transfiguration. And then at meals. Aside from classroom discussion and the occasional polite acknowledgement as they passed each other in their dormitory or common room, Draco and Blaise had not truly spoken. Then Blaise had chosen to sit with Draco on the Hogwarts Express that year. And in the library. And in the Common Room. Draco didn’t know how or why, but he knew that at some point in the past eighteen months he had grown to trust Blaise. They had never talked about it, they almost never had true conversations at all, but he had no doubt that Blaise trusted him as well. Or at least tolerated him enough. And it wasn’t like Blaise talked to anyone who he would tell about Draco’s predicament anyway.

Theo had moved to loom nearer the edge of Draco’s bed again, the look of sincerity on his face making him look human again. Draco wanted to be offended, but sincerity from Theo Nott was as surprising as a supportive hand from Blaise Zabini. As if two deaths wasn’t enough to confuse the shite out of him. 

“Hows about I nick you a Dreamless Sleep from Pucey’s stash-like the git really has night terrors, he _is_ the night terror and I _swear_ he uses them for something nefarious but I for the life of me can’t figure it out because nobody can understand a _single_ word that comes out of his mouth. I have to applaud him charming Pomfrey out of so many though, makes getting my hands on them easier. The three of us will talk this all out later.” Theo said in the softest voice he’d used since Draco had awoken. It sounded wrong coming from Theo’s mouth which, when Draco opened his eyes briefly to nod at the offer, seemed once again to have the correct number of teeth. 

“I hate to say it but Nott’s right.” It was the nicest thing Blaise Zabini had said ever said in Theo Nott’s general direction. “I’ll get us a board to track it all on and everything when you get up again, too. I’ve seen Granger do it with Arithmancy problems before and though I’d hate to say one of her ideas for unraveling this mess you’ve gotten yourself into is anything close to good-I know she’s a right swotty little Mudb-”

Draco cut Blaise off to mutter, “don’t say it,” he didn’t even care how odd it would make him seem to be adverse to a word so frequently found in his vocabulary-but that was before living with the results of it, just another something he’d have to figure out how to explain-but he acquiesced to the suggestion. Visually detangling his mind may be better than attempting it verbally. Blaise nodded in acknowledgement, his usual expression of indifference tinged with what appeared to be solidarity. He didn’t deserve it, not from Blaise nor from Theo. He couldn’t make himself reject it as he had done with anyone who offered him any sort of camaraderie before, either. He didn’t want to. 

_He wanted to have friends that his father and his name hadn’t bought._

When Theo returned not three minutes later with the potion and with Blaise’s hand still on his shoulder, their presence more supportive and calming than he could have ever expected from anyone other than his mother. Draco looked at each of the two boys and, before he could stop himself, said “thank you.” And then he sneezed. The Malfoy allergy to vocalizing gratitude was supplementary to the Black allergy to apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, dear reader, for reading this work. I have high hopes for it going forward, and my wonderful friend @zombiecreatures and I have so, so many ideas for it going forward I can hardly wait to write it! That said, my class schedule for this semester is really starting to crank up, I'm in 21 credit hours, so updates may-will-be slow to say the least. Regardless, to those of you who choose to stick with me through this little experimental piece, I thank you for your patience in advance!
> 
> The Flowers:  
> Dandelions-overcoming hardship  
> Thistle-endurance  
> Spring Crocus-regret  
> Star of Bethlehem-atonement
> 
> Callbacks to rosemary and chamomile from the previous chapters


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